


if you got love to get done

by thisstableground



Series: less than ninety degrees [26]
Category: Do No Harm (TV)
Genre: Fluff and Smut, Multi, That's really all there is to this one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-12
Updated: 2020-02-12
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:28:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22685497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisstableground/pseuds/thisstableground
Summary: Ruben has a headache. Vanessa has a cure.
Relationships: Ruben Marcado/Usnavi (In the Heights)/Vanessa (In the Heights)
Series: less than ninety degrees [26]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/713601
Comments: 6
Kudos: 17





	if you got love to get done

**Author's Note:**

> because who needs plot anyway?

“Anyone ever tell you it’s easier to read with both eyes open?” Vanessa informs Ruben when she finds him on the couch, one arm up covering one eye and a deep frown as he reads one of the million science journals that are always showing up in their mailbox. “Try it, it’ll change your life.”

“Headache,” he says, squinting at her disconsolately. “Painkillers aren’t working. I tried waiting it out but it was so _boring.”_

“Now you sound like Usnavi,” she says, sitting next to him and kissing him on his crinkled-up forehead. “Listen to an audiobook or something instead, dummy.”

“But I want to read _this_ ,” he says stubbornly and since he’d read till his eyes exploded if he decided that’s what he wants to do, Vanessa plucks the journal out of his hands and says, “lie down.”

“What?”

“If this is what you wanna read then I’ll read it to you.”

“What?” he says again. “It’s not- you won’t like it, it’s just boring science stuff, I –“

“Just shut up and let me do a nice thing, okay? Jeez.”

Ruben looks mildly panicked, as if maybe it’s a trick and she’s going to rip the journal in half and call him a dweeb, but he lies with his head against her shoulder anyway. Vanessa’s eyes flicker over the article and oops, she kind of regrets the offer, not so much because boring but because it’s all absolute jargon to her. One day it’ll stick that whatever her idea of light scientific reading might be is worlds away from Ruben’s idea of it, but hell, she’s committed now so she just dives right in and reads like she’s confident, like this is all old news to her.

To his credit, Ruben doesn’t correct her pronunciation on any of the terminology. As she reads he shifts sleepily to hold her in his arms, and whispers, “I love you” in her ear with more sincerity than anyone should ever be allowed to express.

She wants to say, “Ruben, you’re so _strange_ ,” but she knows it won’t sound right if she does, it’ll sound like an insult when she’d mean it to sound like “I love you too.” He _is_ , fascinatingly so. Strange like these whole universes of knowledge in his head that it's so easy to forget are there when they just have normal conversations with him every single day, all that genius she couldn’t even begin to fathom if he tried to explain it to her and yet he’s the one gazing at her like she’s something undiscovered, something wonderful beyond his comprehension. Strange like these repetitive Ruben behaviors that she likes to watch out the corner of her eye and try to decipher what they mean, rubbing the fabric of her t-shirt between his finger and thumb, rubbing his bare foot against the couch in a slow rhythm while she narrates to him in a low voice about things she has no understanding of.

After a while he suddenly burrows his head right against her, face hidden, and she pauses to ask if his head hurts, if he wants her to stop talking.

“No, don’t stop,” he says, without lifting his head, with a just familiar enough cadence that she realizes maybe today the stimming isn’t just to soothe away the headache. Ruben is strange, like the way he walks a hard-to-decipher line between something so sweet wanting innocent comfort and reassurance to wanting a lot more than that, and how the two often coincide in ways she hadn’t known they could. The way he takes her hand and lets her be the one that leads him down that line.

Laughing, she says, “you kinky little _nerd_ , you’re getting off on this.”

“I’m not!” he says defensively, but the bright splashes of color that immediately rises on his cheeks give him away.

Vanessa raises her eyebrows, moves the journal to one hand and pulls Ruben encouragingly towards her with the other. He takes her cue obediently, crawling right into her lap and looping his arms around her neck. Her fingers trail up and down his thigh. As she keeps reading, her voice drops just this side of husky and Ruben leans closer and closer till she can feel his breath against her lips, till it would barely take an inch of movement to feel his mouth under hers, all the tension of anticipation even after so many kisses and almost-kisses before. Her words are stumbling now, distracted as her free hand wanders finding the place where she can feel the ridge of fabric from the leg of his boxers under his sweatpants, up higher to rest on his ass. God, that ass though. Sometimes she’s jealous of Usnavi, the things he gets to do to it. Gotta get round to that herself, some day.

Ruben either doesn't notice or doesn't care that her reading's gone to hell; he just moves her hair out of her face and then his hand drops down to her chest over the t-shirt she’s borrowed from Usnavi, fumbling fingers dipping down under the baggy neckline to stroke and squeeze and appreciate that she’s braless underneath it.

“Definitely not turned on, though?” Vanessa says, smugly.

He laughs and shakes his head. “I know you’re doing this on purpose.”

“I’ve heard that orgasms can help with headaches. Any science on that?”

“Dopamine release,” he says. “Theoretically sound. Only way to know for sure is to put it through human trials.”

“Just so happens I got me a volunteer,” she says, setting the journal down so that she can wrap one arm around his back. The other hand she works inside sweatpants and his boxers as he lays against her comfortably.

It’s funny, she thinks as she touches him, as she kisses him deeply, how everything about him can be so _different_ to Usnavi, how even after so long that’s something so intriguing to her. The heat of his hardening dick, curving up where Usnavi’s is long and straight. Plays her fingers across the head, underneath it, feeling out how it’s cut where Usnavi’s uncut. As her hand goes lower and cups his balls, feels where he’s shaved not quite recently enough so it’s just growing back in. Usnavi would _definitely_ never do that for himself if he wanted to keep all his pieces intact.

Ruben is quiet, Ruben is patient where Usnavi is always noisy and needy. Ruben, Vanessa knows, would happily stay here for hours, letting her touch him without bringing him off, letting her drive him crazy, but Vanessa isn’t all that patient herself so she breaks the kiss by pushing her middle finger in between his lips. His eyes hold so much in them when he looks back at her, he drags his tongue along her finger getting it wet so she can bring it back inside his sweats and push it into him, not far but just enough to tease. She could go and get lube to do this properly, get all his clothes off, take him apart the way she knows he loves but she doesn't wanna break the mood by getting up. Keeps it lazy, keeps it languid, resting her cheek on top of his head and lightly moving her fingers until he’s squirming then gently she takes hold and strokes him til he finishes with a quiet, contented noise.

If Usnavi were here he’d probably make a joke, asking if Ruben’s feeling better or if they need to do a second test for accuracy, but there’s something too lovely in the silence as she takes the time to just admire Ruben. How his mouth is just slightly open and she wants to kiss it closed. How his t-shirt's got bunched up so she can see the way his belly hangs over the waistband of his sweatpants a little, the fuzz of thick dark hair there. How he looks so safe and sweet in her lap, in her arms.

The soft part of Vanessa that she pretends doesn’t exist glows gently in her heart. It’s crazy that nobody ever gave him this kind of attention before when really it’s so _easy_ to make him so happy. Just a science journal and a safe place to stim and being held, that's all it took, such a simple formula that she doesn’t know how someone else didn’t snatch him up first, how anyone could resist having some of Ruben for themselves. But he’s here now, he’s hers now, and call her selfish but she wouldn’t want to share him with anyone other than Usnavi.

**Author's Note:**

> Don't forget to comment if you liked it!


End file.
